Everyone thats ever been a recruiter has had their time wasted. In fact everyone who is a recruiter gets there time wasted weekly and in fact the hiring process itself can waste hours of everyone’s time and regularly does.
Ever interviewed someone and thought.. why are we interviewing this person?
You are not alone, in fact unless you take a careful measured approach to each hire and question the job descriptions that you are presented with line by line this will keep happening to you.
Most try and beat the system using qualification, they qualify everything. They qualify which skills are needed, they qualify if the candidate has every skill, they learn about the skills needed for the role, they learn and qualify and learn and qualify some more.
Yet they still have their time wasted and nothing hurts more than when the hiring manager eventually fills the role with an absolute outlier that from the recruiters understanding shouldn’t have got past the screening.
Why, I hear people say.
There is no single answer to this or a way to stop it happening. My suggestion for recruiters and hiring managers that get this a lot is rip up the current job description and write a completely new one from scratch. Forget templates and long bullet lists, focus on what the person needs to do this job. Look at things like;
Where they most likely work now?
What they are doing at that place, job title etc
Where that place is in relation to your role
What will they be doing day-to-day in your role, and is that different to their current role?
Why is your role interesting?
Are you paying enough?
What are the 3 things they 100% MUST have (everything else is a bonus), example, previous sales experience, your sector experience, willingness to travel
Now only focus on those 3 things..
This may sound sound simplistic but the reality of long template based job descriptions is they are the root of time wasted. Candidates qualify themselves by hitting 70% of the bullets in the description. If you have 10 bullets in the advert they believe they are a good fit. Guess which 3 things they don’t have?
In reality they are not a good fit and you just wasted their time and yours.
How many sales people have 70% of the skills needed for this role below?
Can you spot the only 3 things that really matter?
Answer;
Previous experience selling material handling equipment in a similar company
Willingness to travel
Demonstrable success of hitting targets
The reality of this scenario is the person eventually hired will probably only have one of these attributes at best and that’s where the outliers come in. Maybe someone with contacts in the construction industry from an office based role that previously sold mobile phones but knows the Owners’ son.